I'll be the first to admit, I am no forced induction guru. Nor am I really an aftermarket-realm car guy.

That said, I think I placed my intercooler improperly. I had done me research (so I thought), and followed what I had found on YellowBullet. Many were in agreement there that less than 1" of spacing between the intercooler, and front of radiator (or condenser in my case), was the way to go.

So thats what I came up with, as seen here.



Side shot of the original placement.





Loped along at my house for probably 15-20minutes while messing with tuning and some other things, and hit 210* or so.

Started driving, and soon noticed we were in trouble. It peaked at 230-something, and I pulled over. Left it idling and the temps came down quickly.

Now, I didn't have a front bumper, or hood, airdam, or top shroud on. So there's something to be said about directed (or lack thereof) airflow. But is it significant enough to cause overheating so quickly?

My possible thought was..Maybe I shouldn't have stacked the intercooler so close to the condenser/radiator.

Playing around, i came up with possibly this.


With the IC this low, all the fins are below the bumper crossmember


Would have to rework some piping


This is shot from direction infront of the car. The black section at the top of the picture is the end tank of the intercooler. As you can see, with an airdam below the radiator, it would get more direct flow.


The downfall is this... the intercooler is directly touching the bumper. No bottom entering flow at all.

So I could move the intercooler forward as shown above, but that brings up two issues. A) I'll have to do some serious chopping to the bottom of the bumper. I don't mind, its trashy anyway. More importantly, B) In this position, the intercooler will receive no air at all from the bottom. It would only be what it could get from the front. I had already planned on chopping out the license plate area, but I'm not sure if between the two side vents and the license plate area, if that would be enough to keep IAT's in a happy range.


Does anyone have any thoughts into overheating, intercooler placement, and IATs? Like I said, I really have no experience with this sort of thing so I'm flying blind. I can tig enough to get by, so I don't mind cutting and modifying things if thats what it takes to make it 'right'.

 

Welcome to FI in the C5....lol... we all fight it.

My next plan is to "C notch" the front frame cross bar...(cut it out and box in the top 1" of cross over), relocate the IC to where the cross bar sits, placing it directly behind the license plate area.

Then you'll have a factory sized opening for radiator air flow off the ground. You'll need to mod the license plate from cover and open it all up so it will have air flow to the IC.

Several members here have done this on C5 TT cars and had success...

 

imo having the whole front of the car off could easily be causing much of your issues. I'd put it back together before getting too dramatic with the changes.

just fabing and installing side plates and putting the top shroud back on above the intercooler dropped my cooling temps by by 15*. I would imagine having all of the front of the car off with zero ductwork could easily be more impactful. just my $0.02

what is that intercooler too btw? looks like a nice setup

 

Thanks gentlemen.

After some advice for Texas' own FI c5 guru, I fabbed up an air dam and ran the car for much longer and hit a high of 225.

In fairness, I did have the condenser out because I needed to also have a custom line made, but even still, seems like between the air dam, side shrouds, and top shroud, maybe that will take care of my issue. I'm going to buy a new condenser, because i can't seem to get mine fully cleaned out of debris.

Its a one off intercooler with Bell core.

Would love to see your finished product AJ, seems like that might be the next option. I only have maybe 1" between intercooler and radiator at the bottom. And even then, my cradle crossmember is hogging up a portion of that. Really wishing I would have built the cradle differently now.

 

The first thing I would do is fabricate ductwork to ensure that the air goes thru the intercooler and radiator instead of around them. You would be amazed the difference that can make.

 

You're right, I should have done that from the start. Worked on some templates today, but still got a long ways to go before transferring them to sheet metal.

Most top shrouds I've seen seem to be fairly flat. My intercooler sits WAY lower than my radiator. Seems like it would make sense to angle it... Am I wrong?

 

you can angle it from the top of the intercooler or you can go straight up and put a 90*. I would go with a curved piece myself - it will allow the air to flow more smoothly. Then again, a straight angled piece is a lot easier to fabricate. The only down side is you will end up with minimal air space at the top to allow air to flow thru.

 

Remember when you start running the AC, you can add 15* minimum to your running temps, especially at idle.

I agree, put the body back together, shroud in the radiator and seal it up well and see what it does, then go from there... Just be prepared for the shock when the AC on...